The Adventures of James Norrington, Pirate
by Zath Chauvert
Summary: Lost at sea and given the choice of either dying as navy men or living as pirates, Commodore Norrington and Lieutenant Gillette choose life. This story is AU for everything after Curse of the Black Pearl. On a very long hiatus, but not abandoned.
1. Because Every Story Must Begin Somewhere

* * *

**Title: **The Adventures of James Norrington, Pirate  
**Author: **Zath Chauvert  
**Summary: **Lost at sea and given the choice between dying as navy men and living as pirates, Commodore Norrington and Lieutenant Gillette choose life.  
**Chapter Summary: **Jack doesn't get drunk, Elizabeth doesn't stay sober, and Gibbs gets in trouble.  
**Rating: **PG-13, just in case   
**Feedback: **Yes, please! Any and all feedback, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated. Just hit the Review button at the bottom of the page. You can also read my author profile for other contact information.  
**Disclaimer: **All characters, ships, and Aztec curses from the movie _Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl_ belong to Disney. All original characters and the story itself belong to me. I'm not making any money from the story. I'm only even writing this crazy thing because the evil plot bunnies won't leave me alone.  
**Author's Note: **Thanks must be given where they are due, namely to my beta-reader, Jessica Berry. Any mistakes in the story remain my own. I also want to thank all the other kind people at the NDL who chose to encourage me instead of calling me a nutball when I started talking about this idea.

* * *

**The Adventures of James Norrington, Pirate**  
By Zath Chauvert

**Chapter One: Because Every Story Must Begin Somewhere**

The tavern was noisy and smelled of unwashed humanity. It was smoky and poorly lit. It was also predominately filled with pirates. However, despite all these facts, it was still not quite the sort of tavern that one would find in Tortuga. For one thing, it was too small. For another, there was no perpetual fight raging across the middle regions of the room. It also failed to resemble a Tortuga tavern because the serving wenches, strumpets, and other ladies of questionable virtue were much fewer and farther between than would be found in the buccaneer haven, and of those women who were present, not a single one of them had slapped or otherwise assaulted the pirate captain who was laughing and drinking with several friends in one of the back corners.

Truth be told, no one other than his drinking companions had even recognized him, and that suited Captain Jack Sparrow just fine at the moment. He was not usually very fond of anonymity unless he was actively hiding from someone, but in this case it allowed him to spend an entertaining evening with his friends. It still struck him as odd that he even called anyone "friend" and really meant it. Only a few short years ago he had been completely alone in the world, and yet here he was, having a high time of it with an entire table full of people who he trusted with his life. Cotton, Anamaria and Gibbs were all crewmembers, so trusting them was a bit of a necessity, but the group also included young Will Turner and his bonny lass Elizabeth, the two of whom Sparrow had traveled more than an hundred miles out of his way for, just so that he could "happen to run into them."

This supposedly chance meeting, which had precipitated the evening's festivities, not to mention the festivities every evening for the past five days, had originally been meant to take place in Port Royal. However, when the Scurra Vagas (a.k.a. the Black Pearl with different sails and its crew on their best behavior) pulled into dock, Jack had been informed that Mr. Turner and his wife were spending two months on a small obscure island because Turner had agreed to temporarily take over for its only town's only blacksmith, who was in the process of recovering from a broken collarbone. Having not visited that area in nearly twenty years because it didn't have a lot to offer aside from a nice harbor and some fresh water, Jack had been forced to dig out some of his least used charts in order to get there, but there they were, all because he wanted to spend some time with a couple of friends before going back to the old game of loot and plunder.

Not that Jack would ever admit to any of these things, at least not until he was a lot drunker than he was, and he suspected that that would require more time than what remained before he was due to hoist anchor on the morning tide and leave this backwater little isle for more profitable venues. He had been swilling rum for the better part of two hours and was barely feeling even the slightest effects of the alcohol. Jack frowned into his tankard. He was severely tempted to accuse the tapster of watering down the libations beyond all reason, but there hadn't been anything wrong with the alcohol any of the previous few nights, not to mention the fact that everyone at the table had been drinking from the same collection of bottles and all five of his companions seemed to be getting drunk without the least bit of trouble. In fact, Mr. Cotton, who usually held his liquor better than anyone on the Black Pearl, was already slumped forward, asleep with his face against the battered wooden tabletop after attempting to match Jack drink for drink. As Cotton snored, his parrot, the big blue and yellow macaw that he used to talk for him, continued to croon a wistful song about mermaids, which under these conditions generally translated to, "I'm going to have a really bad hangover tomorrow."

Jack wasn't going to think about it. He took a swig from his tankard and puckered his face in disgust as his mouth was suddenly filled with the tang of rum mixed with dusty spider webs. He paused, then took another tentative sip. This time, all he tasted was rum. He definitely wasn't going to think about it. It was beyond his control, so with the skill perfected over the course of a long lifetime, Jack Sparrow gave a mental shrug and put all traces of worry out of his mind. He set down the tankard and turned his attention back to his companions. And why should he not? After all, he could drink whenever he wanted to, but it wasn't very often that he got to enjoy the company of the daughter of the governor of Jamaica. It was even more rare that he got to enjoy her company while she was three sheets to the wind. To make matters even better yet, he knew that if she decided to burn all the rum the next morning, it would be someone else's problem this time.

Elizabeth was currently giggling like a child as Gibbs, who was sitting across from her, concluded one of his many pirate tales. They were amongst friends, so Gibbs was sticking to the true stories of the crew's own recent adventures (right now it was the one about how just a few weeks ago they had mounted the Pearl's bow- and stern-chasers in the rowboats and, with the help of Cotton's parrot and some fog thicker than pea soup, managed to make a trio of Dutch merchant vessels on their way to St. Maarten think that they were surrounded by an entire fleet of pirate ships), and the picture that Elizabeth presented as she listened, sitting in the corner with the wall on one side and her smiling husband on the other, her face flushed from drinking and alight with laughter, was enough to make a man forget anything. One moment she was leaning forward in rapt attention, the next she was throwing her head back and howling with such laughter as was rarely permitted in the gatherings held by polite society, and the next moment after that she was back to hanging on Gibbs's every word.

Jack had to grin as he watched her. It was good to see her like this, and not just because she was so young and beautiful and oh so very much alive, although of course those factors didn't hurt in the slightest. With just about any other woman in the world, being young and beautiful would have been enough for Jack, but Elizabeth belonged to Will in both body and soul, just as Will belonged to her, and though it would probably surprise a great many people, Jack was willing to respect that bond. He knew that trying to get between the two would be like someone trying to get between himself and the Pearl, so Elizabeth was off limits in that regard. No, the thing that really warmed Jack's heart when he saw Elizabeth in such a state was the fact that she had let herself get that way at all. It meant that she trusted him enough to let down her guard in his presence. He knew because there had been a time when she hadn't. Still, Jack didn't think that she had meant to get quite as plushed to the scuppers as she was just then. She had been following him about one drink for three, which had served her well in the past, but when that strategy was coupled with his own little problem tonight, it lead to some interesting developments. Jack hoped that she wouldn't hate him in the morning. It wasn't like he had been doing it on purpose.

Gibbs began another story. This time it was the one about what happened when several crewmembers aboard the Black Pearl had conspired to make Anamaria believe that she had gotten married to Mr. Bigg, the bald dwarf, while she was drunk during a particularly boisterous stopover in Tortuga. Unfortunately, this particular incident, despite being a few months in the past, was still a sore spot with the lady pirate in question, who quickly gave Gibbs a sharp elbow in the ribs and a kick under the table, thereby ending the story before it could do much more than begin. Gibbs had only gotten as far into the tale as, "So the Pearl caught this little Portuguese ship a few months back. It gave up without a fight, which turned out to be because it didn't have much that was worth fightin' for. Had barely any valuables at all. It was mostly clothes and such, but her captain had these two matching rings and a- Ouch!" at which point Anamaria jabbed and booted him into submission, at least for a few seconds. Then Gibbs got over his surprise enough to yell, "Blast it, woman! What was that for?"

Will snickered at the antics of Jack's first mate and quartermaster. This sort of thing happened almost every single time that they got together. The only reason that the two were still allowed to sit next to each other was the fact that no one wanted to be in the middle when Anamaria's hands started flying, which was bound to happen no matter where she was sitting.

"You know darn well what it was for, you old bilge rat!" Anamaria yelled back.

"I wasn't doin' anything!"

"Like hell you weren't!" Anamaria hit him again, this time a punch to the arm. She probably would have smacked him in the face if she hadn't suspected that his bushy whiskers would soften the blow.

"Ow! I was just tellin' Miss Elizabeth 'bout what's happened since we saw her and her husband last!"

"You were telling 'em about those bloody stupid rings!" She didn't hit him, but judging by the way that Gibbs jerked back with a yelp, she had probably kicked him again.

"Darn it, Ana, it happened. S'not like I'm making up lies or anything. I've every right to tell it," Gibbs grumbled, sounding more like a petulant child than like the seasoned pirate that he was.

"If you want to tell about the rings, go right ahead. Then, _I_ get to tell her and Will about you and that so-called _lady_ in New Providence!" She sneered the word 'lady' in such a way that even though neither Will nor Jack had any idea what lady Anamaria was talking about, both instantly knew that the woman must have been repellent even by Joshamee Gibbs's usual low standards, if she had even been a woman at all. Jack, who had been with a lady of his own when the incident (whatever it was) must have occurred, made a mental note to get the full story later. Will, on the other hand, wasn't certain that he would ever be able to learn the full details of whatever might have happened with Gibbs's lady, but speculating over it was enough to remind him of finding Gibbs with the pigs in Tortuga shortly after he had first met Jack, a memory which was always good for a laugh.

Gibbs cringed. "There's no need for that now, Ana." He held up his hands, trying to make peace. "There's no need for that at all." Anamaria glowered a bit more and then backed off. Gibbs let out a sigh of relief, took a long drink straight from one of the few bottles of rum that had yet to be emptied, and then looked apologetically at Elizabeth. "I guess you won't be hearing that one, lass," he said, "leastways not right now. There's always next time." Anamaria snarled and raised her fist, causing Gibbs to quickly add, "but even then you won't be hearin' it from me!" He desperately fished around for something to change the subject. "How's about we do a song instead?"

Elizabeth, who was drunk enough to have gotten thoroughly confused by the altercation between the two pirates, brightened at the mention of a song. "Oh! Oh!" she exclaimed. "I know a song!"

"Well, let's hear it, love," Jack said with a grin. He was always ready for an excuse to sing the Really Bad Eggs Song, as he liked to think of it. However, Elizabeth threw back her head and, at the top of her lungs, started singing something completely different.

"_Aboard the good ship Venus,  
You really should've seen us,  
With a figurehead of a whore in bed  
and a mast like a giant--_"

Jack leaned over and clapped a rough and rather dirty hand over her mouth before she could finish the line. Once he was certain that she wasn't about to sing anymore, he removed his hand from her face and sat back in his chair, much to the relief or one Mr. William Turner, who had been squashed between the two of them by the sudden action. Elizabeth opened her mouth to start again, but Jack waved at her to remain silent.

"Lizzie darling," he began, "Elizabeth, Mrs. Turner. Ordinarily, I would be the last person to make comments about propriety, but in this case there are several things I must bring to your attention. Number one, your husband is sitting right next to you, and he is sitting right next to me. Number two..." Jack paused, noticing that Elizabeth's full attention was now focused on the fluttering motions that his hands were making as he was trying to list off his points. "You aren't listening to a single word of this, are you?"

Elizabeth's lack of answer was all the affirmation that he needed or could hope to receive. Will, Gibbs, and Anamaria all watched with bemusement as Jack thought for a moment, still holding Elizabeth's attention with a single slightly twitching hand. Then he wiggled his fingers first one way, then another, towards the wall, over Cotton's head. Will had to lean out of the way as his wife followed the meandering path of the pirate's hand. Finally, Jack brought both of his hands together directly in front of his face, causing Elizabeth to lock eyes with him. She jerked back in surprise, then looked around with a touch of chagrin, noticing that not only Jack but the entire table (minus Cotton, of course) was watching her. Even Cotton's parrot was giving her funny looks. "I'm sorry, Jack. Were you saying something?" she asked as if becoming mesmerized by the motions of a man's tar encrusted fingernails was an everyday occurrence.

"Yes, Elizabeth, I _was_ saying something. I was trying to tell you that, number one, your husband is sitting right between the two of us and listening to what both of us are saying and, in your case, singing. Number two, your husband has a habit of swinging and/or throwing very sharp objects when he gets upset, especially when pirates are involved. Number three, your husband is probably going to think that I'm the one who taught you this song. Number four, your husband is probably going to be very upset by your singing this song, which will, by way of numbers one through three, put me, pirate that I am, in great bodily danger."

"You don't think he'll like the song?" Elizabeth began to pout.

"You never know, he might like the song," Jack answered, "but I don't think he'll like the fact that you're the one singing it, so maybe you should just leave well enough alone."

Will sighed, half in embarrassment and half in exasperation. "I think I already have a fair idea of where the song was going," he said.

"Oh, no, you don't." Elizabeth's pout had disappeared, instantly replaced by a wide, drunken grin that looked like it should have contained a few gold teeth. "It gets a lot worse."

"And I didn't teach it to her, Will! I want you to know that," Jack insisted.

"Of course he didn't teach it to me, Will," Elizabeth said with a giggle. Relieved, Jack let out the breath that he had been holding, but Elizabeth wasn't finished. "Mr. Gibbs did." Jack blinked, wondering if he had heard that correctly. Across the table, the older pirate started choking on his drink. Yes, Jack must have heard correctly. "When I was twelve," she continued. Gibbs and Will were now both turning bright red but for distinctly different reasons. Anamaria looked back and forth between the two spluttering men and then broke out laughing. "In fact," Elizabeth went on thoughtfully, oblivious to the reactions of her husband and friends, "he taught it to me the day right after we rescued you from the water. He said I needed to learn something new so I wouldn't sing about pirates anymore."

Jack Sparrow rolled his eyes heavenward. "Oh Lizzie," he groaned melodramatically, doing his best to keep from laughing at Gibbs's and Will's discomfiture, "maybe you should have blamed me for the song after all. At least _I_ can defend myself in a fight." Then, without warning, he threw himself on top of the young blacksmith, looked across the table, and said very calmly, "Run, Gibbs."

**To be continued...**

Coming next chapter: there's news from Port Royal, and the story's main plot finally gets going!

**Author's Note (again): **There are just two quick things that I want to say, and then I'll let you get on with your lives (assuming that anyone has actually bothered to read this far). First, I think it would be interesting to see if anyone can guess why Jack chose the name "Scurra Vagas" for the Black Pearl's alter ego. The answer is not even slightly important to the plot, and I currently have plans to mention Jack's reason later in the story, but I'm curious if anyone can figure it out before I get there. Second, I did not write Elizabeth's song, and I don't know who did. It's presence in this story can blamed on the Poxy Boggards, but they list the song as being "traditional," which means that they don't know who wrote it either. For those who aren't familiar with the full song and are morbidly curious, just do a web search for the phrase "aboard the good ship Venus" and you should get plenty of results. There are several different versions, all of them raunchy. Don't go looking for it if you're easily offended. Okay, that is all. You are now free to return to your regularly scheduled fanfic reading.

* * *


	2. Fights And False Tidings

* * *

**Title: **The Adventures of James Norrington, Pirate  
**Author: **Zath Chauvert  
**Summary: **Lost at sea and given the choice between dying as navy men and living as pirates, Commodore Norrington and Lieutenant Gillette choose life.  
**Chapter Summary: **Will attempts to punish Gibbs, and the outside world intrudes on our happy little scene.  
**Rating: **PG-13, just in case  
**Feedback: **Yes, please! Any and all feedback, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated. Just hit the Review button at the bottom of the page. You can also read my author profile for other contact information.  
**Disclaimer: **See Chapter One for disclaimer. Nothing has changed.  
**Author's Note: **Yes, I really am working on this story again. Shocking, isn't it? To anyone who first read Chapter One way back when it was originally posted, I apologize for the unforgivable length of the wait for Chapter Two. Let's just say that 2005 was a bad year and leave it at that. This chapter is dedicated to Honorel (a.k.a. Longjohn Showtime), because he didn't complain when he found out that I was working on it instead of the story that I had promised him for his birthday.

* * *

**The Adventures of James Norrington, Pirate**  
By Zath Chauvert

**Chapter 2: Fights And False Tidings**

"Run, Gibbs."

For a moment, the blacksmith and the grizzled pirate both stared in shock. They were too dumbfounded to move. Seconds ticked by, and nothing happened. Then, Gibbs's alcohol-clouded mind was finally able to process and accept the fact that his captain _really was_ sitting in the lap of his young friend. He opened his mouth to make a eunuch joke, but then his brain caught up to the fact that his captain had also told him to run. Gibbs had spent his entire adult life following orders from one source or another, be it naval officer or pirate captain, and he had long ago learned that following orders without questioning them was the best way to stay alive in most situations. Besides, as soon as he thought about it, he realized that running was a very good idea indeed.

And so Gibbs ran. Or rather, he tried to run. There were some difficulties. The tavern that they were occupying made a policy of using only long benches for seating, because, in a fight, the heavy benches were much more difficult to throw than individual chairs. The drinkers in the corner had been sitting three to a bench, on either side of their table, which had been fine as long as they all wanted to stay where they were. However, as soon as Gibbs found himself in need of a hasty departure, he realized exactly how limited the space for movement really was. He was caught between Anamaria and the wall, the proverbial rock and a hard place.

The bench was too far under the table to let him fully stand, and he couldn't swing his legs around. Gibbs had absolutely zero success in trying to move his seat back to get more space to maneuver. He looked behind him and saw that the rear legs of the bench were caught against the edge of a severely warped floorboard. He would have to lift the bench and carry it backwards if he wanted to move it at all, but between the solidly built bench itself, which weighed at least seventy-five pounds if not more, and the combined weights of his two shipmates sitting on top of it, there was no chance of that happening. He tried to push the table forward, but despite straining for all he was worth, he met with equally dismal results. Had he been in a position where he could have seen under the table, he would have learned that it was nailed in place. Once she realized that Gibbs was facing potential problems that were much more serious than embarrassment, Anamaria tried to scoot over to give him additional room, but she was only able to give him a few extra inches before she ran into Mr. Cotton, whose unconscious dead weight blocked the easy escape route. Gibbs began to panic.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, as Gibbs had his entire attention focused on trying to make his getaway, his would-be pursuer was engaged in an attempted escape of his own. At first, the appearance of a pirate in his lap had flabbergasted Will to the point that he was incapable of coherent thought. For a few vital seconds, the contents of his mind consisted of nothing but exclamation points and question marks without any words attached to them. Nobody moved. Then, as if a spell had been broken, at the exact same moment that Gibbs realized that he needed to run, Will remembered that he wanted to beat Gibbs senseless. As Gibbs fumbled to free himself from the table, Will struggled to free himself from Jack.

Unfortunately for Will and his sense of moral outrage, Jack Sparrow prided himself on his ability to climb the rigging in any weather and control a ship's wheel in any current, and subduing a bucking blacksmith utilized the same set of skills as those aforementioned feats, namely the ability to latch on to something and not let go of it no matter what. In addition to using his entire body weight to hold down his friend, Jack had also wrapped Turner in a bear hug at the first sign of resistance, thus keeping the young man's arms pinned to his sides. Will fought and thrashed with the full force of his anger, but he could not free himself.

"Let me go, Jack!" the young man shouted.

"Gladly," replied the pirate, "just as soon as you promise not to do anything that we'll all regret in the morning."

"Gibbs is the only one who'll regret anything!"

"I certainly hope that you're not trying to assuage my fears of you having hostile intentions towards my quartermaster, because you're doing a terrible job of it if you are."

"Let go of me!" Turner redoubled his efforts, but Jack just held on tighter. "You have no part in this!"

"That's where you're wrong, lad," Jack grunted as he was thrown against the table, then against the back wall, then against the table again. The pain was distant at the moment, but he was sure that, come sunup, he'd feel every single black and blue mark. "Good crewmembers are hard to find, so once a captain's found some, he needs to look out for them, even the ones who did amusingly inadvisable things long before he met them."

Will started to snarl a reply, but he was silenced by a hand pressed gently over his mouth. This particular hand was much smaller than the hand that had silenced his wife not many minutes earlier. It was also much cleaner, though not perfectly clean. It lacked the tar and general griminess that coated Jack's hands, but it was slightly sticky with spilled rum. This hand, of course, belonged to Elizabeth Turner herself, and the gesture did more to calm the blacksmith than anything that Jack had tried. Will froze where he was, still tense but at least no longer trying to fling himself and his battered passenger all over the place. He had apparently forgotten what his wife was there, even though he had just been fighting for a chance to defend her childhood honor.

Elizabeth peeled her hand away from his mouth and, with a smile, leaned in to gently kiss her husband on the lips. Then, she turned slightly, planted a kiss on the end of Jack Sparrow's nose, and finally settled back into her seat. Both men stared at her. Unnoticed, on the other side of the table, Gibbs continued his frantic scrabble to escape from the bench.

"Now now, Will," she chided, drawing his name out to '_W-i-i-i-i-l-l-l-l-l-l_' as if pulling verbal taffy. "You shouldn't be angry at Mr. Gibbs. I'm sure he would have taught you the song too, but the ship's doctor said you weren't to be disturbed." She patted him consolingly on the shoulder and nodded to herself as if her words explained and excused everything. Jack briefly wondered if Elizabeth was trying to get Will to laugh or if, in her drunken state, she really didn't understand why he was angry. He decided that it didn't really matter as long as it had the desired results.

If luck had been on Captain Sparrow's side that night, young Mr. Turner would have started to relax despite himself, even without the help of any humor that he might have found in his wife's most recent statement. After all, Elizabeth could always have that effect on the boy when she wanted to, even when she was drunker than she had ever been in her entire life. She didn't even need words to do it. All she needed to do was smile and remind the boy that they loved each other, and Turner would turn to mush inside. Jack had seen it happen a dozen times, and he was sure that it had happened a thousand other times that he had not been present to witness.

If luck had been on the pirate's side, Turner would have calmed down enough for Jack to let go of him without having to worry about the continued health of his quartermaster. Once that happened, Gibbs could have stopped flailing around like a lame rat caught in a bucket. Then they could have all settled back and discussed the matter without coming to blows. As a pirate, violence was a way of life for Jack, but he hated fights where ties of loyalty to both parties kept him from being able to root for one particular side against the other. In his book, two of his friends fighting against each other equaled a no-win situation. Maybe those feelings were just caused by selfishness. Maybe they were caused by something a tiny bit nobler than common greed, something that the pirate wouldn't ordinarily admit to having unless he thought doing so would gain him something. Jack didn't have time to analyze his motives, because however difficult many of his adversaries may have found it to believe, there were indeed times when luck was most decidedly _not_ in Jack Sparrow's favor. This was definitely one of those occasions.

By all rights, Will should have turned to putty in his wife's somewhat sticky hands, allowing everyone at the table to return to their previous business of enjoying themselves. What actually happened was that just as Will looked like he might have considered giving up the urge to fight, Gibbs chose that very moment to finally break free from the table, and the situation went downhill from there.

Working together, Gibbs and Anamaria had finally managed to push Mr. Cotton sideways off of the bench. The unconscious pirate tumbled bonelessly to the floor, while his parrot, suddenly bereft of its perch, let loose an indignant squawk and flapped up to find a safer roosting place among the roughhewn rafters. Anamaria immediately let out a screech of her own as Gibbs, unwilling to wait for her to move herself, kept right on pushing, forcing her off the bench and onto Cotton. His path finally clear, Gibbs muttered a quick apology to his fallen comrades as he scrambled over them towards freedom.

The twin shrieks were loud enough to get the attention of many of the tavern's other customers who, until that point, had been ignoring the group in the corner. Of greater importance, though, was the fact that the sound was more than enough to get the attention of the young man who had been beginning to get lost in the depths of his wife's eyes. Like a dog faced with a rabbit that broke cover right under its nose, the blacksmith seemed to have no choice but to give chase to the fleeing pirate. He wasn't even trying to think anymore. He was operating on pure instinct. Turner gave a massive heave against the man who was still holding him down, causing Sparrow's head to meet the wall with a resounding crack. Jack's grip instantly loosened. In a single motion, Will threw his former captor aside and launched himself over the table after Gibbs, scattering mugs, bottles, and people as he went.

Gibbs was only a few steps away from freedom when the younger man tackled him from behind. The blacksmith and pirate crashed to the ground amidst applause from various other patrons of the tavern. Through the noise, Elizabeth could barely be heard shouting for her husband to stop. On a tiny island whose main advantage was being far from the usual patrols of any country's navy, even a two-man brawl had the potential to turn into the best entertainment that most of the locals had seen all week. Many of the island's residents had developed at least a passing acquaintance with William Turner over the preceding month, whereas Gibbs was an unknown quantity who had not made a very good showing of himself in the brief moments that he had so far held the public eye. Even before the two men could untangle themselves from the fall, bets were placed all around them with four to one odds that Gibbs would be spitting teeth within less than two minutes.

Ironically, it was Will's flying tackle that had probably saved Gibbs from losing anything important out of his mouth. This was because at the exact moment that Gibbs would have reached the door, it was kicked open from the outside, passing with killing speed right through the space where the pirate's head would have been. Like the benches, tables, and everything else in the tavern, the door was solid timber built to survive bar fights, hurricanes, and anything else that fate decided to throw at it. In a confrontation between its mass and something so puny as a human skull, there would have been no contest. Turner was, of course, not aware of any of this. He was too busy straddling his victim with every intention of beating him senseless.

However, just as Will was about to deliver the first blow, there was a lull in the noise of the tavern. It was not very close to silence, but there was a definite drop in the level of shouting, and a lone voice carried clearly through the relative quiet. "Jack Sparrow is dead," bellowed the voice, sounding out of breath. "Jack Sparrow is dead!"

For a moment, there really was silence. Then the moment passed and conversations roared to life all around the tavern. The combatants on the floor were instantly forgotten, which was just as well, because their potential for providing entertainment had just dropped considerably. All fight had gone out of them. Turner and Gibbs stared at each other for the second time that evening, this time exchanging looks of dread, any trace of the previous hostility gone as if it had never existed. Then, almost as a single unit, the two men scrambled to their feet and pushed their way back to the table in the corner, where they found Elizabeth and Anamaria bent over Jack, who was looking groggy and sore but far from dead.

"Jack Sparrow is dead!" the voice shouted again. The voice's owner was the man who, if not for Will's lucky tackle, would have unintentionally rearranged Joshamee Gibbs' face with the tavern's front door.

"Yes, yes, we heard you the first time," Jack called back irritably. He shooed away his caretakers and staggered to his feet. "Captain Sparrow is dead. Long live Captain Sparrow!" He searched the table for a drink to lift in toast, but the recent altercation had taken its toll, both on the night's refreshments and on the man. Defeated, Jack slumped back into his seat, returning himself to Elizabeth's ministrations. He looked around for Anamaria, but she had abandoned him for the now semi-awake Mr. Cotton, who was sitting on the floor, blinking in confusion while his parrot screeched questions from up in the rafters.

Will and Gibbs had the good graces to look embarrassed.

"I'm so sorry, Jack," the young blacksmith said quietly, unable to meet his friend's eyes.

"As well you should be," the pirate captain agreed. At those words, Will's shoulders slumped even lower than they had been. "Still," Jack continued, "it almost wouldn't be a proper visit to the Turner family without at least one blow to the head of yours truly." Will looked up and saw that Jack was smiling. It was a pained smile, but it was genuine nonetheless. Will sheepishly smiled back.

"Perhaps someday I'll be able to break myself of that habit."

"Perhaps someday you might. In the meantime..." Jack paused as he searched through his various pockets, finally producing a disreputable looking handkerchief and a couple of coins. He started to toss the coins, then thought better of it and, instead, held them out for Turner to take. "In the meantime, you can make it up to me by getting us some more drinks. The remains of the last batch seem to have ended up on the floor." Jack practically had to shout the final few words because the noise level in the small tavern had been steadily rising ever since the sudden arrival of the stranger. "As for you Gibbs, do us a favor and see if you can convince our self-proclaimed town crier to come join us. I'd be interested in hearing what he has to say when he's not screaming it at the top of his lungs for all and sundry. Rumors of my demise aren't usually enough to cause so much fuss, not even is a place like this."

"Aye, Captain."

Jack watched the two former adversaries depart on their separate missions. Then he sighed, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back to rest against the wall, a move which he instantly regretted. He leaned forward again, hissing softly through his teeth. Now _there_ was a pain that was very real and very immediate. There was no need to wait until the morning to find out how _that_ spot was going to feel. Jack gingerly pressed the handkerchief to the back of his head. When he removed it, the bright red of fresh blood stood out against the assorted older stains on the cloth. There was not a lot of blood, only a few small spots, but any blood was more than he would have liked.

"Jack?" It was Elizabeth. She sounded worried, almost plaintive.

"Yes, love?"

Elizabeth didn't answer. Instead, she took the handkerchief from him, gently turned him away from her, and began examining the back of his head. Her movements were slow and deliberate, as if she had to think very carefully about each one. She had, after all, had quite a bit to drink. However, it was clear that the stress of the near-disaster between her husband and Mr. Gibbs had been enough to sober her at least a little, in spirit if not physically. Gingerly, she ran her fingers over his skull, inspecting the damage. It would have felt good if it hadn't hurt so much.

Finally, she turned him towards her again and said, "It's hard to tell exactly how bad it is with all your hair in the way."

"I'll be fine, Lizzie. I've had much worse, and I'm sure that I'll have to suffer through even worse yet before I shuffle off this mortal coil. In a day or two, it'll be like this never happened. Don't worry about Old Jack." He was about to tell Elizabeth that, while painful, a little knock on the head will forever seem like a mere trifle once you've been shot in the chest twice and seen the bones sticking out of your arm without the benefit of an Aztec curse, but Will Turner chose that moment to return carrying a bottle of rum. Some things were probably better left unsaid anyway.

At first, it seemed odd that Will had only brought the one bottle, but then Jack looked around and saw that he was the only one at the table with any remaining interest in drinking. Drinking alone wasn't nearly as much fun as drinking with other people, but if no one wanted to join him then he would just have to do what needed to be done. With a shrug, he reached for one of the scattered mugs, really having only one to choose from because the rest had been knocked onto the floor. Jack didn't know who it had belonged to, but it was his now. He uncorked the bottle of rum and was filling the mug when Gibbs rejoined the group along with the man who seemed so fond of announcing that Jack Sparrow was dead. Cotton and Anamaria made room for Gibbs on the bench. Lacking a place to sit, the other man had to make do with crouching and leaning on the end of the table to bring himself more or less to eye level with the rest of them.

Jack raised his eyes from the mug to inspect the newcomer. He was a large man, both tall and broad, with a tanned, pock-scarred face and messy blond hair that was receding from the temples. By the look of things and the smell of his breath, he had already been on the receiving end of the generosity of quite a few of the tavern's patrons in exchange for his news. Jack made as if to pass him the mug of rum, but held back.

"Do you have a name, sailor?"

"The name's Christopher Snyder." The name wasn't familiar, but that didn't always mean very much where pirates were concerned, and this man was definitely a pirate. If he wasn't a pirate, then Jack was the Queen of England.

"Well, Mr. Snyder, I hear you have some sort of very important news that just can't be kept quiet," Jack said, keeping a tight grip on the mug's handle.

"It's the best sort of news there is, for people like us," Snyder said, "if you catch my meaning."

"I don't think that I do, but hopefully I will once you've finished." Jack looked down again at the mug of rum then pushed it into Snyder's hand. The man happily took a swallow while Jack continued, "I'm curious how any of us would benefit from the death of Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Jack Sparrow's nothing!" Snyder started laughing but stopped himself when he saw the expressions of everyone at the table. "Now, don't get me wrong. If he was a friend to you and yours, then you have my condolences. Me, I never met the man, so his passing ain't none of my concern. Besides, him being dead is just the beginning." Snyder leaned in conspiratorially, taking the opportunity to leer at Elizabeth and Anamaria as he did so. "It gets plenty better from there."

"I should bloody well hope so," Jack muttered. If Snyder heard him, he gave no sign of it, so Jack raised his voice and in more friendly tones said, "Go on then. If the news you've shared so far has only been the appetizer, then I'm simply dying to get to the main course."

Snyder took another swallow of rum, leaned in even closer, and triumphantly proclaimed, "Commodore Norrington's dead too!"

**To be continued...**

**Author's Note (again): **Ack! This is the bar scene that would not die. I keep poking the characters, but they refuse to hurry up and get to the little bit of exposition that was the only reason that this scene exists at all. I promise: next chapter, we'll leave this dingy tavern behind, never to return, and poor neglected Norrington will finally be able take center stage in his own story. Honest! I also promise that Chapter Three will take a significantly shorter amount of time to deliver than Chapter Two did.

* * *


End file.
